I'm going to ignore the sort of hostile tone you're taking with me for the sake of an earnest discussion.

But yeah, to get more specific... for example, we could try to advocate for a law that companies like X and Facebook that have consumer-facing image generation to at least fund it with renewables as opposed to just burning natural gas generators. A blanket law that new data centers can only use nuclear or renewables period, regardless of application. I know you'll just say that's "lib-shit" but what do you want me to do say we should start kidnapping politicians or something? It's hard to target this stuff since you can do it at home on a gaming GPU, so I think going after larger providers like social media companies makes sense.

Also energy usage HAS gone down significantly for a lot of these inference requests since some of the original findings. We're finding out that a mixture of experts (small models trained on specific tasks that can be routed to by a top level model that specializes in routing) can rival the output of previously very expensive foundational models for a fraction of the cost. There's new hardware coming out that makes the matrix math more performant and I think it's not unreasonable to say we should put public funds behind such research for the sake of the planet.

And I'm not just saying "it sucks now". That's my whole point... it's more nuanced than that. You're seeing a lot of the most wasteful applications of it on social media because you're not seeing how individuals and businesses aren't necessarily publishing their workflows that use this tech.

To give an example, video generation, something we didn't have even two years ago worth a shit, is getting better every week. If you're a filmmaker and you're in the field filming something, but realize you need a few seconds of establishing shot, or maybe you notice a continuity fuckup or something, you'd normally have to go back on site and reshoot more footage. That includes getting a crew into one or more vehicles, driving somewhere, and using probably lots more fossil fuels. With transformer based video tech, you can use generative fill or just generate a transition or clothing change for those few seconds and save loads of time and money. It's not all black and white is all I'm saying.

disengage

What I'm advocating for is a more nuanced conversation that goes beyond the binary of "it's all bad" vs. "it's all good." Expressing frustration and concerns is absolutely valid.